casjam

Thanks for mentioning my video! That was an old one.

I've published a lot more about productized services since then. Articles, newer videos, and my Productize Podcast can be found here: https://productizeandscale.com

Of course the headline is designed to attract attention. That's generally what headlines are supposed to do (get you to keep reading).

Perhaps if you listened to the interview, you'd see that the headline is perfectly in line with story presented in the interview. It also covered the backstory that led up launching this service so quickly, and how they're learning to operate and scale it as they go. Poke fun at the headline all you want, but you're missing the point.

To clarify: This post isn't published by the founder of WP Curve. It's my interview with the founder. If you have questions about their service, you should ask those at wpcurve.com.

For people who are new to creating/launching a product, 10 customers in the first week would be a huge win. So this is a very instructive conversation for people in that camp (who I'd guess are the majority).

And the impressive part of this story is its not 10 customers within 1 week of "launch" day. It's 10 customers within about a week of deciding on the "idea". Idea --> MVP launch --> Paying customers... 1 week.

Ya, one of the great aspects / hidden benefit of a service like this is how it makes the lives of web developers easier because they have a reliable service they can refer clients to when they don't want to handle those pesky small maintenance tasks anymore.

I suggest you actually listen to the interview. Nobody talked about this being a "passive income" business. In fact, early in the interview, Dan talked about how he doesn't believe any business can be truly automated, and that answer actually made me re-think the question I had asked.

"statistically needling their way into some exploitative niche" ...wow. Providing real support to website owners who need it (and are willing to pay for it) is exploitation?

In reality, WP Curve provides an alternative to hiring a web developer by the hour to provide support when needed. It's actually a much more efficient model for all parties (client and developer).

It's true that the kernal of the idea may have originated earlier, and developed over a longer period of time (which is kind of what Dan explained during the interview). But the point I was getting at with this title was that it was less than 1 week from the day Dan decided to pursue this idea and actually start this company that he had 10 paying customers.

Most founders have an idea, decide it's something they would like to pursue, then spend many weeks/months working to validate it, build MVP, attract customers. You can't deny that WP Curve started and gained initial traction exceptionally faster than most.

James - We designed SweetProcess (http://sweetprocess.com) for exactly this purpose: To easily and effectively document your step-by-step procedures.

All can be done:

- Share with multiple people - Version control - Multiple editors - Link procedures together, group them, sub-procedures

Awesome. Can't wait to see the affiliate tracking system. Customer referrals are nice, but we get more requests from people who wish to be affiliates for our saas product.

Suggestions?

What I'm talking about is an app that will handle the registration of affiliates, tracking saas payments (<-- this part would talk to Stripe), and calculating commissions on an ongoing basis. The database of affiliates wouldn't be lost if I were to switch payment processors (this app should integrate with others too, like recurly, etc.. I say Stripe because I haven't seen any affiliate systems that have stripe integration).

"write a few lines of code to POST a commission through an API each month for the recurring part"

As you can probably tell from my original post, I'm not a developer and I'm unable to do this myself. Sure, I could hire a dev to build one custom just for me, but wouldn't it be better if someone released an affiliate management app that is designed for saas sales and integrates with the popular saas payment processors like Stripe and Recurly?

Totally agree. Getting good at podcasting takes a lot of practice. It's a lot harder than it may seem.

Writing the topics and talking points — and sticking to them — is also a tricky task. In my first podcast series, we tended to ramble off-topic making for some pretty boring segments.

I really like this idea too. A curated content newsletter a la http://www.nextdraft.com is a concept that is still under-utilized.

True, it's hard to track subscribers, etc. But like others have said, those subscribers are much more tuned in than say casual readers of your blog articles. Much higher level of trust with a podcast audience imo.

Yup. For the handful of podcasts that I subscribe to, I try and listen to EVERY new episode. I can't say the same for every blog I subscribe to.

Yes they are very effective (when the content is good).

The podcast listener-host relationship is much more intimate than the blog reader-writer relationship. They connect with the personality. Better medium to build trust than writing articles.

A portfolio is a great first step. Doesn't have to be many projects. Just a few really impressive ones.

The good news is there are plenty of startups in need of videos. Offer to do a couple on the cheap to start your portfolio. Then start charging market rates.

I think you're describing the majority of freelance blog writers you'll find on places like Elance, etc. these days.

What I meant was the blogger should deliver not only articles but all the other (very important) tasks for running an effective blog: editorial calendar, topic development, blogger outreach, etc. A premium blogging service, if you will.